I spend some time customizing the colors for syntax highlighting in Eclipse (Java, JSP, HTML, CSS, etc.) but whenever I try to export these settings via File|Export|General|Preferences and reimport them, the settings never completely get imported back. Some colors are restored and others are left unchanged, leaving me in an 'in between' state - very frustrating.
I'm using Eclipse 3.4 Ganymede, by the way.
Has anyone found a reliable way to save and restore Eclipse syntax highlighting settings?
I finally figured out how to do this.
I just wanted to mention beforehand that I did try to start with a fresh Eclipse install, export the preferences to a .epf file, change just one single setting, export again, and compare the files. To my surprise, trying to import settings from a minimal .epf file did not work reliably either.
The solution that worked for me was to copy these files: {Eclipse workspace directory}/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings/*.prefs
I tried a fresh Eclipse install on another machine and after copying those files over, all my settings were restored perfectly.
The solution was to copy SOME - not all - of the files from {workspace}/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings/*.prefs into my other workspace.
In particular (per the https://stackoverflow.com/questions/96981/color-themes-for-eclipse thread):
org.eclipse.jdt.ui.prefs = Syntax Coloring
org.eclipse.ui.editors.prefs = Text Editors
Copying other files caused things to break.
There are a couple of notes to add:
This worked with Eclipse Helios.
If you want to be a little more fine grained on what you migrate, the syntax highlighting rules are the lines starting with semanticHighlighting on workspace-indigo/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings/org.eclipse.jdt.ui.prefs
Doing this, I was able to migrate my syntax highlighting from Helios to Indigo
I'm using JBoss Developer Studio 10 with the Eclipse Neon 4.6 engine.
All .prefs files are inside this path:
/workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings
I recommend search for org.eclipse.*ui*.prefs instead *.prefs to refine your result.
The principal config files are:
If have a problematic workspace:
Copy the files aboveCreate a new workspaceCopy and Replace that files in your new workspaceThis will recover perfectly your custom editors color settings. For me worked very well.
Eclipse CDT stores 'Syntax coloring' in the file org.eclipse.cdt.ui.prefs
This is located for example here: C:\eclipse\workspace.metadata.plugins\org.eclipse.core.runtime.settings\
Copy and paste over the top of the one in your new eclipse instance. This worked for me when moving from 3.4 to 3.5
I would export the preference before modifying the color, and then after.
That way, you would be able to isolate the specific rules of an eclipse preference file into one smaller file and:
That kind of strategy can be further refined into several small settings files (one for Java, one for JSP, HTML, CSS, ...), in order to better analyzing the potential side-effects when re-importing those settings.
Once Michael Bosworth's answer helped me to some extend and I voted up. But now I see some obligation to answer it myself, because copying these two files are not enough. Let me explain why.
Second, syntax coloring for other editors are located elsewhere, for example, those of XML files are in
org.eclipse.wst.xml.ui.prefs
and those of HTML files:
org.eclipse.wst.html.ui.prefs
JSP pages?
org.eclipse.jst.jsp.ui.prefs
, etc.
If we search *.pref files in path
/workspace/.metadata/.plugins
we can find all preferences files where we can locate all lines of coloring settings. But by copy-pasting all these files to another workspace can also trigger problems, for they are not exclusively syntax-coloring-related. Moreover, when we are switching between two versions of Eclipse, unexpected problems may arise.
So, the safest way is:
*.pref files we find in the workspace one by one,EDIT: (2017.02.24)
Eclipse Mars has a plugin Oomph, which can record your preference settings to provide seamless transmission of your preferences. When you activate it, every time you change a value, it prompts to ask you if you want to record it in Oomph, providing you the exact line in the corresponding file where your new value is stored. So, when you install Oomph, you can:
I have deleted recently changed *.prefs file from the following dreictory \myworkspace.metadata.plugins\org.eclipse.core.runtime.settings\ and imported existing exported preference.
I am the first person, who answer for this question as per my knowledge :), Cause even I struggled lot.
Thanks
I have had success in importing Eclipse Helios's syntax highlighting rules by copying the file:
.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings/org.eclipse.jdt.ui.prefs
from the source workspace to the target workspace. It seems this file also contains Eclipse's code formatter profiles and code templates.
Environment:
Version: Helios Release
Build id: 20100617-1415
(on linux)
I faced the same problem few days ago. The easiest way to restore the defaults is to import the default theme again, which you can find under: http://eclipsecolorthemes.org/?view=theme&id=790
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